149 replies to this topic 2 votes

[Tyler R.]

patseguin, on 20 November 2012 - 21:12, said:

Well I installed Linux mint on one of my ssd's. when done, I instead of getting a boot loader for wi 8 or Linux it went straight to Linux. I entered my username and password and it said I would log in in 5 seconds. This was just an and less loop and I never got into Mint.

You need to change your boot order. In your BIOS, select the drive you installed Mint on and set it as the primary boot device. You can set it as secondary if your primary is your DVD/CD drive, save and reboot. You should see your boot menu.

threetonesun, on 20 November 2012 - 21:17, said:

Welcome to the wonderful world of dual booting Windows and Linux.

Seriously, this is why every says VMing in is the way to go.

It's not Linux's fault. It's the way he installed it. It helps if people know how to use GRUB and what drive to install the boot loader to.

[Darrian]

I've been playing with Elementary (www.elementaryos.org). It's still in Beta, but perfectly usable in my limited experience. It's Ubuntu-based and it's beautiful. Stock Ubuntu is a really good distro, too, which is what I was playing with before I found out about Elementary.

[CubeDweller]

I recommend Ubuntu 12.04 if you want something stable and pleasant to use. Like you, I wanted something completely different than the Windows user experience but I also wanted something well-supported and relatively ubiquitous. I'm a professional developer, and I'm slowly moving from Windows to Linux. Everyone I work with daily used to code in C# and C++ on Visual Studio, but given Microsoft's silence last year on .NET support moving forward, and the speed at which Microsoft now deprecates their tools and technologies (WPF, EF, LINQ to SQL, etc.) many of us have decided on a new approach using open-source tools that we could bring in-house and maintain ourselves if necessary.

CherryPy and Python 3 is replacing ASP.NET, nginx is replacing IIS, C++ (using gcc) is now used for our speed-critical components, and Unity 3D remains as our game engine (since it now supports deployment to Linux). The Unity 3D editor runs fairly well in a VM, but there are several people working on making it work under WINE.

Linux on the desktop, Android on the mobile devices, Ouya for the gaming console... This is exactly what Microsoft feared, but they're late to the party. Kind of like how they were shown Wii-like hardware before there was a Wii, and they scoffed at it. It wasn't until the Wii became popular that they scrambled to release Kinect. Microsoft seems more interested in chasing the market than in innovating these days, which is sad actually. Microsoft R&D has some really cool projects, but none of them ever seem to see the light of day in mainstream releases.

[Haggis]

I use linux as my main os, I am using fedora

fedora, ubuntu, suse, mint are all pretty easy to install and use in my opinion

[medhunter]

patseguin, on 20 November 2012 - 19:48, said:

My question is two part: How many of you use Linux as your main OS and what distro? Ubuntu and Mint seem like the best right now. What is wants is something that does NOT look like Windows.

not alot of people here use linux. but it is not about prevalence, it is about usability.
I 'd recommend gnome, KDE, Cinnamon and unity as DE.choice of DE is very important prior to choosing a distro.
Mint is very stable and really good.If I can add another rising distro: Mageia
You should just start using as a new adventure that is worth taking.and believe me, it is worth it.

[Enron]

Slackware

[Growled]

threetonesun, on 20 November 2012 - 21:17, said:

Welcome to the wonderful world of dual booting Windows and Linux.

I still play around with Puppy but rarely any other Linux any more. I've gotten to hate dual booting, so I mainly stay in Windows since I need it for my work.

[UncleSpellbinder]

I haven't used Windows for a while now. And I don't miss it at all. Currently I'm using Fuduntu (a Fedora fork).

[+patseguin]

Well, I have Mint installed in a VMWare Box. Linux is very difficult to install driver or software on. I had to Google command line commends to ge the nVidia drivers and even that failed somehow because I am now stuck on 640 X 480. I also downloaded Chrome and I found out you can't just double click on a downloaded file to install it. It still seems very advanced and only for the very computer savvy, nowhere near ready for prime time.

[Mindovermaster]

I have used a lot of distros. Right now I'm settling with Ubuntu 12.10, using Cinnamon. I have not flipped to the Windows 7 side in about two weeks, and not missing it.

[James7]

xorangekiller, on 20 November 2012 - 21:43, said:

Although I'm a Debian user, I definitely recommend installing Ubuntu 12.04 if you are a new Linux user. Ubuntu is probably the best supported consumer-oriented distro, and the latest long term support release, 12.04, is fast and super stable.

My only other recommendation is not to approach learning Linux by comparing it to the way things work in Windows. It is not Windows. Many things work differently, and that's necessarily not a bad thing. It will just take some time to get familiar with. The Ubuntu forums and wiki are also an excellent source of information when you need to solve problems or learn how things work. The few Linux users who frequent Neowin are be happy to help you as well (or, at least, I am).

These are all good points. I have used Ubuntu for more than five years. 12.04 is a great place to start, and it's got support for the next five years.

If you don't like the Unity desktop, you can go for any other one out there, pretty much. You can experiment with desktops and pick the one that works best for you. There are lots of ways to keep Windows when using Linux, if you need to. I use VMware (I've got heaps of RAM and so I can easily have a Windows virtual machine going and switch back and forth), but there are free solutions out there too. I use OSX at work and I wish I could install it at home as a virtual machine (I know there are ways to do this, but it's against the license).

[+ViperAFK]

patseguin, on 21 November 2012 - 00:43, said:

Well, I have Mint installed in a VMWare Box. Linux is very difficult to install driver or software on. I had to Google command line commends to ge the nVidia drivers and even that failed somehow because I am now stuck on 640 X 480. I also downloaded Chrome and I found out you can't just double click on a downloaded file to install it. It still seems very advanced and only for the very computer savvy, nowhere near ready for prime time.

None of this is true. If you download chrome from google's website, you get a .deb file which you *do* simply double click and install, Works for me in both mint and ubuntu. In double clicking it opens the ubuntu software center and installs it, in mint it opens gdebi and installs it.

There's also a gui for installing nvidia/ati drivers in ubuntu and mint.

[Mindovermaster]

ViperAFK, on 21 November 2012 - 02:49, said:

None of this is true. Chrome comes as a deb file which you *do* simply double click and install, Works for me in both mint and ubuntu. In ubuntu it opens the ubuntu software center and installs it, in mint it opens gdebi and installs it.

There's also a gui for installing nvidia/ati drivers in ubuntu and mint.

And pretty much everything you would want to install is also in the Ubuntu Software Center. Chrome is in there, too. (for Ubuntu, that is, just giving an example)

[xorangekiller]

patseguin, on 21 November 2012 - 00:43, said:

Well, I have Mint installed in a VMWare Box. Linux is very difficult to install driver or software on. I had to Google command line commends to ge the nVidia drivers and even that failed somehow because I am now stuck on 640 X 480. I also downloaded Chrome and I found out you can't just double click on a downloaded file to install it. It still seems very advanced and only for the very computer savvy, nowhere near ready for prime time.

Although I'm just guessing based on the information you gave, I can probably tell you what your problem is: you are approaching your Mint install as if it were Windows. In Linux, you very rarely want to download software directly from the vendor's website. For example, if I wanted to install the proprietary nVidia driver in Ubuntu, I would install it from the repository using a command like sudo apt-get install nvidia-current instead of downloading the binary blob from nvidia.com. Similarly, instead of downloading and installing Chrome directly from www.google.com/chrome, I would use sudo apt-get install chromium-current.

As a new user, however, its very unlikely that you prefer typing commands into terminal as I do. Unfortunately, that is something that often turns off new users and gives them the impression that Linux distros are difficult to use. That's not the case at all; its just that more experienced users often prefer CLI to GUI (and terminal commands are far easier and more concise to give over the Internet). In Ubuntu (and probably Mint as well since its Ubuntu based), you can easily search and install software using the Software Center. If you prefer a more powerful graphical interface to the repository, you can also install Synaptic Package Manager and use that instead of, or in addition to, Software Center.

While it may take a little while to get used to, installing software from the repository has several benefits. First, its easy. You don't need to go hunting for software or worry about downloading download.com's download manager just to get your programs. Second, updates are centralized. Instead of needing to use the updaters built into each piece of software you can merely update the repository (which is done automatically once every other day in Ubuntu by default) and install updates. Third, security and program integration are managed by your distribution. Any piece of software in the repository is theoretically guaranteed by the maintainers of your distribution to be secure and work properly with your system. Its a different way of thinking, but it works well (in my opinion much better than the traditional Windows approach) once you adjust to it.

Edit: Ah, I was too slow again. ViperAFK and Mindovermaster beat me to it.I know is kinda long, but please read my post anyway.

[+ViperAFK]

xorangekiller, on 21 November 2012 - 02:57, said:

Although I'm just guessing based on the information you gave, I can probably tell you what your problem is: you are approaching your Mint install as if it were Windows. In Linux, you very rarely want to download software directly from the vendor's website. For example, if I wanted to install the proprietary nVidia driver in Ubuntu, I would install it from the repository using a command like sudo apt-get install nvidia-current instead of downloading the binary blob from nvidia.com. Similarly, instead of downloading and installing Chrome directly from www.google.com/chrome, I would use sudo apt-get install chromium-current.

As a new user, however, its very unlikely that you prefer typing commands into terminal as I do. Unfortunately, that is something that often turns off new users and gives them the impression that Linux distros are difficult to use. That's not the case at all; its just that more experienced users often prefer CLI to GUI (and terminal commands are far easier and more concise to give over the Internet). In Ubuntu (and probably Mint as well since its Ubuntu based), you can easily search and install software using the Software Center. If you prefer a more powerful graphical interface to the repository, you can also install Synaptic Package Manager and use that instead of, or in addition to, Software Center.

While it may take a little while to get used to, installing software from the repository has several benefits. First, its easy. You don't need to go hunting for software or worry about downloading download.com's download manager just to get your programs. Second, updates are centralized. Instead of needing to use the updaters built into each piece of software you can merely update the repository (which is done automatically once every other day in Ubuntu by default) and install updates. Third, security and program integration are managed by your distribution. Any piece of software in the repository is theoretically guaranteed by the maintainers of your distribution to be secure and work properly with your system. Its a different way of thinking, but it works well (in my opinion much better than the traditional Windows approach) once you adjust to it.

Edit: Ah, I was too slow again. ViperAFK and Mindovermaster beat me to it.I know is kinda long, but please read my post anyway.

Downloading chrome right from google gives you a few advantages over chromium though (integrated pdf reader, integrated pepper flash, extra html5 codecs)